Page 81 of Sweet Obsession

He stepped closer. Not fast. Deliberate. Like a predator with time to kill.

“You ran,” he said. “To you, it was freedom. To me, it was betrayal. You think I’d just let you go? After what we’ve shared?”

“You don’t get to decide that!” My voice cracked. “You can’t burn down my life and expect me to fall into your arms.”

But I didn’t move when he reached for me. I didn’t stop him when he brushed my hair from my face. I hated that part of me, the part that still wanted to feel something other than grief.

I looked at his chest. One scar, above his heart, pulled me in. A brutal line. I hated him. I hated what he’d done. But that scar, raw, angry, human, mocked me with the reminder that monsters bleed too.

“What happened here?” I whispered, fingers brushing it before I could stop myself.

“Moscow,” he said. “A man tried to take what was mine. He failed.”

His hand covered mine, holding it to his chest. I could feel the beat of his heart. Steady. Strong. Too human for a man like him.

I yanked away. “You take. That’s all you do. You fight. You burn. But what about me, Misha? What about what I want?”

He leaned in, caging me in with his arms on either side of the counter. His breath warmed my cheek.

“I see you, Luna,” he murmured. “The fire in you. I’ve never wanted anything the way I want you.”

His lips grazed my temple. Soft. Almost tender.

I hated how much I wanted to fall into him.

But then I remembered Colombia.

I pushed him away, hands shaking. “You don’t see me. You see a possession. I can’t forgive you.”

He didn’t argue. Just stared, silent. He hesitated like the words tasted wrong in his mouth. “Then I’ll wait,” he said finally, voice rough. “As long as it takes.”

Hours later, the memory of Misha’s arms around me in the kitchen wouldn’t leave me alone. His voice—“I’ll wait as long as it takes”echoed in my skull like a threat I didn’t know how to handle.

My anger hadn’t faded. It burned steady, fed by the wreckage he left behind in Colombia. But beneath that fire was something worse, something soft and wanting. Something that felt like need.

I slipped out of my room, the silk of my nightgown brushing my thighs, a shawl hanging loose around my shoulders. Barefoot, I wandered the halls like a ghost, searching for silence.

The library door creaked open under my touch. I expected darkness.

Instead, I found him.

Misha sat in a leather armchair near the fireplace, one leg bent lazily, a book open in his hands. Shirt unbuttoned at the collar. Hair a mess like he’d clawed through it. He looked up, those pale eyes catching fire in the low light and my breath caught.

“Luna.” His voice was deep, sleep-rough. “Can’t sleep?”

I held my shawl tighter around me, like it could shield me from the gravity between us. “Didn’t expect you here,” I said. “Figured you’d be off planning your next war. Or burning someone else’s life down.”

The blow landed. I saw it in the way his jaw tensed, in the flicker in his eyes. But he didn’t flinch. “I’m not always thevillain,” he said, closing the book, his voice level. “Sometimes I just read.”

I glanced at the cover,Pushkin, in Russian, and frowned. “Poetry?” I asked, surprised despite myself. “Didn’t think you had that kind of soul.”

He gave a half-smile, the kind that made something twist low in my belly. “Stepan loved it. He used to read it to me when we were kids. I didn’t understand it back then. Now...” His voice drifted, and I hated that it made him human.

I walked along the shelves, brushing my fingers across the spines. I needed distance, but I was drifting closer instead. When I reached for a book, his hand touched mine.

Heat surged.

I flinched, but he caught my wrist, gentle, but firm. His thumb traced my pulse. My breath hitched.